About Olivia Mary de Havilland

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born 1 July 1916) is a two-time Academy Award-winning actress. She is the older sister of actress Joan Fontaine, also an Academy Award winner. Along with Shirley Temple, Maureen O'Hara, Luise Rainer, Gloria Stuart, Deanna Durbin and her sister, Joan Fontaine, de Havilland is one of the last surviving female stars from Hollywood of the 1930s. She is also the last living lead from the Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind.

----------------------------------------------------------

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on 1 July 1916 at Tokyo, Japan.

She is the daughter of Walter Augustus de Havilland and Lillian Augusta Ruse.

She married, firstly, Marcus Aurelius Goodrich, son of Briggs Goodrich, on 26 August 1946. She and Marcus Aurelius Goodrich were divorced on 28 August 1953.

She married, secondly, Pierre Paul Galante, son of Antoine Galante, on 2 April 1955.

Olivia Mary de Havilland was an actress.1 She was decorated with the award of Oscar in 1946.

From 26 August 1946, her married name became Goodrich. She was decorated with the award of Oscar in 1949.1 From 2 April 1955, her married name became Galante.

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born 1 July 1916) is a two-time Academy Award-winning actress. She is the older sister of actress Joan Fontaine, also an Academy Award winner. Along with Shirley Temple, Maureen O'Hara, Luise Rainer, Gloria Stuart, Deanna Durbin and her sister, Joan Fontaine, de Havilland is one of the last surviving female stars from Hollywood of the 1930s. She is also the last living lead from the Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind.

Early life

De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her mother, Lilian Augusta Ruse (1886-1975), was an actress known by her stage name Lilian Fontaine, and her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968), was a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan. Her parents married in 1914 and divorced when Olivia was three.

Her younger sister is actress Joan Fontaine (born 1917), from whom she has been estranged for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975. Her paternal cousin is Sir Geoffrey de Havilland.

The de Havilland family moved from Tokyo when she was two years old, settling in Saratoga, California. She attended school at Los Gatos High School and at the Notre Dame Convent Catholic girls' school in Belmont, California . An acting award at Los Gatos is named after her.

Career

in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)De Havilland's career began co-starring with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike in 1935. She appeared as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first stage production, at the Hollywood Bowl. The stage production was later turned into a 1935 movie. Although the stage cast was largely replaced with Warner Bros. contract players, she was hired to reprise her role as Hermia. After this, de Havilland played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films. She played Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

In 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States. De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her. She felt she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. When her Warner Bros. contract expired, the studio informed her that six months had been added to it for times she had been on suspension; the law allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory, this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.

from the trailer for In This Our Life (1942)Most accepted this situation, while a few tried to change the system. Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s. De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s, supported by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood. Her courage in mounting such a challenge, and her subsequent victory, won her the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her sister Joan Fontaine who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal".[4] The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The court's ruling came to be known, and is still known to this day, as the "de Havilland law".

Following the release of Devotion, a Hollywood biography of the Brontë sisters filmed in 1943 but withheld from release during the suspension and litigation, de Havilland signed a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve. James Agee, in his review for The Dark Mirror (1946), noted the change, and stated that although she had always been "one of the prettiest women in movies", her recent performances had proven her acting ability. He commented that she did not possess "any remarkable talent, but her playing is thoughtful, quiet, detailed and well-sustained... and an undivided pleasure to see."[5] She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award-nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.

De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period. She was reported to have declined the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, citing the unsavory nature of some elements of the script and saying there were certain lines she could not allow herself to speak. The role eventually went to her Gone with the Wind co-star, Vivien Leigh, who won her second Academy Award for her role. De Havilland continued acting on film until the late 1970s, afterward continuing her career on television until the late 1980s, highlighted by her winning a Golden Globe and earning a Emmy Award nomination for her performance as the Dowager Empress Maria in the 1986 miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

1986 Emmy Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special

----Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna Nominated

----Golden Globe Award Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series,---Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV Won

In 2008, de Havilland was awarded the United States National Medal of Arts.

Personal life

Relationships

De Havilland and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, appearing in eight films together, but never had a romantic life off-screen. In an interview with Gregory Speck, de Havilland stated, "He never guessed I had a crush on him. And it didn't get better either. In fact, I read in something that he wrote that he was in love with me when we made The Charge of the Light Brigade the next year, in 1936. I was amazed to read that, for it never occurred to me that he was smitten with me, too, even though we did all those pictures together." However, in an interview cited on Turner Classic Movies[6] de Havilland claims she knew the crush was reciprocal and further states that Flynn proposed, though de Havilland turned down the proposal as Flynn was at the time still married to actress Lili Damita.

De Havilland was romantically involved with John Huston, James Stewart and Howard Hughes in the early 1940s. She married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946 and they divorced in 1953. Their son, Benjamin (born in 1949) became a mathematician and died in 1991 after a long battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

She was married to French journalist and Paris Match editor Pierre Galante between 1955 until 1979. Their daughter, Giselle (who later became a journalist) was born in July 1956 when de Havilland was 40. After the divorce, de Havilland and Galante remained on good terms, and she nursed him through his final illness (lung cancer) in Paris, which was the stated reason for her absence from the 70th anniversary of the Oscars in 1998.

De Havilland was good friends with Bette Davis and has remained a close friend of Gloria Stuart. In April 2008, she attended the Los Angeles funeral of Charlton Heston and was a surprise guest at the Academy Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis.

Sibling rivalry

Of the two sisters, Olivia was the first to become an actress; when Joan tried to follow her lead, their mother, who allegedly favored Olivia, refused to let her use the family name, so Joan was forced to invent a name, taking first Joan Burfield, and later Joan Fontaine, utilizing the last name of their stepfather, GM Fontaine.

Biographer Charles Higham records that the sisters have always had an uneasy relationship, starting in early childhood when Olivia would rip up the clothes Joan had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Joan to sew them back together. A lot of the feud and resentment between the sisters supposedly stems from Joan's perception of Olivia being their mother's favorite child.

Both Olivia and Joan were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Joan won first for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) over Olivia's performance in Hold Back the Dawn. Charles Higham states that Joan "felt guilty about winning given her lack of obsessive career drive..." Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Joan stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected Olivia's attempts at congratulating her and that Olivia was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Several years later, Olivia would remember the slight and exact her own revenge by brushing past Joan, who was waiting with her hand extended, because Olivia had allegedly taken offense at a comment Joan had made about Olivia's then-husband.

Olivia's relationship with Joan continued to deteriorate after the two incidents. Charles Higham has stated that this was the near final straw for what would become a lifelong feud, but the sisters did not completely stop speaking to each other until 1975. According to Joan, Olivia did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother, who had recently died. Olivia claims she told Joan, but that Joan had brushed her off, claiming that she was too busy to attend.

Charles Higham records that Joan has an estranged relationship with her own daughters as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with their aunt Olivia.

Both sisters have refused to comment publicly about their feud and dysfunctional family relationships.

De Havilland today

A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland rarely makes public appearances. She is reported to be working on an autobiography.[citation needed] She appeared as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003. In June 2006, she made appearances at tributes for her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

In 2004, Turner Classic Movies put together a retrospective piece called Melanie Remembers in which de Havilland was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of Gone with the Wind's original release. The film's last surviving principal cast member, de Havilland remembered every detail of her casting as well as filming. The 40-minute documentary can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.

In 2008 she was a surprise guest at a Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis

On November 17th, 2008, at the age of 92, she received the National Medal for the Arts from President George W. Bush.

Generations of De Havilland's fans would recognize her instantly. The expressive dark eyes, the lovely complexion, the apple cheeks remain unchanged, framed by an elegant swath of silver hair, truly her crowning glory, swept up in an impeccable French twist. Blessed with robust health and an abundant love of life, she is a lively raconteur to whom laughter comes easily. De Havilland, her distinctive voice as rich and mellow as ever, understands that enduring beauty, beyond good genes, is a matter of spirit rather than artifice.

For her recent interview, in the garden of her journalist daughter Gisele Galante's spacious beachside home, De Havilland was dressed simply in a powder-blue skirt, an ink-blue blouse and accented by a colorful silk scarf and a pair of gold earrings........................................

Olivia de Hallivand, the last remaining great Hollywood star of both the golden '30s and '40s, is an irresistible woman. When the subject of birthdays comes up in the middle of an interview, she looks the writer straight in the eye and declares, "I'm old enough to be your mother!," promptly brushing aside all polite demurrals. There's something at once amusing and touching when the remark is directed at a man on the cusp of 70 and comes from a movie star who's about to turn 90. Clearly the truthfulness that characterizes De Havilland's acting comes from the woman herself.

Generations of De Havilland's fans would recognize her instantly. The expressive dark eyes, the lovely complexion, the apple cheeks remain unchanged, framed by an elegant swath of silver hair, truly her crowning glory, swept up in an impeccable French twist. Blessed with robust health and an abundant love of life, she is a lively raconteur to whom laughter comes easily. De Havilland, her distinctive voice as rich and mellow as ever, understands that enduring beauty, beyond good genes, is a matter of spirit rather than artifice.

For her recent interview, in the garden of her journalist daughter Gisele Galante's spacious beachside home, De Havilland was dressed simply in a powder-blue skirt, an ink-blue blouse and accented by a colorful silk scarf and a pair of gold earrings.

De Havilland, who has lived in France since marrying the late Paris Match editor Pierre Galante in 1955, is in town for a tribute to her being held Thursday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The event launches a retrospective of her finest films screening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art beginning Friday and running through July 1. De Havilland will discuss "The Heiress" preceding its 8 p.m. screening Sunday.

She is undoubtedly best remembered as the noble-minded yet resilient Melanie in "Gone With the Wind," managing to bring dimension and humanity to a woman of unassailable purity and garnering an Oscar nomination for supporting actress. But she found even wider-ranging roles in "To Each His Own" (1946), for which De Havilland won her first best actress Oscar as a small-town upstate New York teenager who finds herself unwed and pregnant through a whirlwind World War I romance, and in "The Snake Pit" (1948), which earned her a best actress nomination for her portrayal of a young wife stricken with mental illness and thrust into a hellish state institution.

But "The Heiress" (1949), directed by William Wyler, which brought De Havilland her second Oscar, playing a Henry James spinster beset by the cruelties of an overbearing father (Ralph Richardson) and an untrustworthy suitor (Montgomery Clift), is a highlight in a career that could strike envy even in as versatile and successful an actress as Nicole Kidman.

De Havilland has been blessed by a deceptively demure cameo-like beauty that has allowed her to reveal layers of underlying warmth, passion and intelligence in her characters. She has shown that strength and femininity are hardly mutually exclusive, and the meticulously developed scripts that came alive within the stylized world of the studio system allowed De Havilland to create truly complete women, something that few young actresses have the opportunity to do in today's Hollywood. Her major films have stood the test of time, a phrase cherished by the American Film Institute — which has yet to honor her with a lifetime achievement award.

Unhesitatingly, De Havilland selects "The Snake Pit," directed by Anatole Litvak from Mary Jane Ward's autobiographical novel, as the film that means most to her.

"Remember, we made this at a time when there was still a medieval attitude toward mental illness. People just didn't talk about such things — they were considered shameful. The case in our film was that of a seriously deranged young woman at a time when there weren't any modern chemicals — just electric shock and hydrotherapy."

Ultimately, De Havilland's heroine is saved by therapy sessions with a dedicated staff psychiatrist (Leo Genn) who defies a sclerotic and underfunded bureaucracy to provide her with the help she needs. Alas, "The Snake Pit" in many ways remains all too unsettlingly timely. What especially attracted De Havilland to the project was her 1943 wartime tour of six military hospitals, including their mental wards, stretching from Chicago to Alaska and the South Pacific to Oklahoma, where she spent a Christmas Eve with a group of soldiers who had no reaction either to her presence or to a recording of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

"That was a hard Christmas, but harder for them than for me," said De Havilland, who recalled that the public at the time had little awareness of the existence of these wards.

According to De Havilland, she was able to go on the tour only because she was on suspension from Warner Bros., which led her to take on then-studio head Jack Warner in court and successfully bring to an end the servitude that could emerge from the studio era's classic seven-year contract. (Every time an actor refused to play a part, his or her contract was extended to cover the time it took for a replacement player to fill the role.)

"I really had no choice but to fight," said De Havilland, who had balked when she was handed a script in which she had a decidedly small part and told to report on loan-out to Columbia the following Monday. She instead sought out Martin Gang, known for decades as one of Hollywood's most formidable attorneys, who showed her that state labor laws say that a seven-year contract commitment is for seven calendar years, period.

"Providing the judge was honest, the outcome in court seemed perfectly clear. I never really understood why Jack wanted to fight this. I wanted to bring Oscars to Jack, but he did everything to prevent me from doing so." (It was at Paramount where De Havilland won both her Oscars — and no, Warner did not congratulate her.)

Still, De Havilland was not about to take chances. "The Warners attorney painted me as a spoiled movie star, so I defended myself as demurely as I could, and I decided to wear a little black hat with a little black veil." She said that it was only several years ago that she came to realize the full impact of her stand, which led to a drawn-out legal battle, when veteran Hollywood executive and recently retired Turner Entertainment Co. President Roger Mayer let her know what it had meant to screenwriters at the time. "Roger told me that writers would be assigned to stories for which they were totally unsuitable but faced suspension if they refused, but now they could retain their integrity."

A loyalty to Mitchell Leisen

OF all the filmmakers who directed her in more than 40 feature films, De Havilland retains a special fondness for the late Mitchell Leisen, who directed her not only in "To Each His Own" but also in "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941), in which she plays an adorably naive Azusa schoolteacher on a cross-the-border outing in Mexico when she meets European lounge lizard Charles Boyer, who determines to marry her to get into the U.S. Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, "Hold Back the Dawn" allows De Havilland to reveal the passion and vulnerability lurking in a seemingly prim and decidedly unsophisticated woman. It also earned her yet another Oscar nomination for best actress. When the chance to do "To Each His Own" came up, De Havilland decided that Leisen was the only director at Paramount to do it. "But he was going through some emotional problems at the time and turned it down, but I held firm," said De Havilland, who refused to sign on unless Leisen was involved.

"Even when I heard that Ingrid Bergman was reading the script, which certainly worried me, I still held firm, and after about six months, Mitch finally agreed to do the picture." Both her films for Leisen are marked by fine shadings in the performances and a concern for nuance and telling detail. "During the first two weeks of shooting he was very professional but didn't seem happy," recalled De Havilland. "Then the following Monday, when he came on the set whistling, I knew he had fallen in love with the film. He even acted out my character in her early days of her pregnancy and showed me how I should lean against a table, something I had not thought of myself, and I knew he really understood my role and this film."

Born to British parents in Tokyo, where her father had business interests, and her mother had taught choral music, De Havilland and her younger sister, Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine, spent much of their childhood years in the charming Northern California town of Saratoga, where she made her stage debut in 1933 in a community theater production of "Alice in Wonderland." Even though the Depression had hit her mother, who had remarried, and her stepfather hard, she recalls a happy, active childhood. She had won a scholarship to Mills College, but her dedicated study of Max Reinhardt's staging of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at UC Berkeley's Greek Theatre led him to invite her to be an understudy for the role of Hermia in his Hollywood Bowl production of the Shakespeare play, where she not only wound up playing the part but repeating it in Warner's elaborate, spangly 1935 production, directed by Reinhardt with William Dieterle.

Mills College kindly kept extending the start date of De Havilland's scholarship, but there came a point where, she said with a laugh, "I couldn't let down Herr Doktor Reinhardt, the greatest director in the world."

Her contract with Warners paired her almost immediately with another newcomer, Errol Flynn, and in eight films they became one of Hollywood's most popular romantic teams, starting with the swashbuckler "Captain Blood" (1935). In one of their most enduring pictures, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), shot in Technicolor, the horse on which De Havilland's Maid Marian rode was none other than Roy Rogers' famous Trigger. "I was warned that he was a bolter and to keep my head down so that I would not be struck by any tree branches," said De Havilland.

"I think of Errol all the time," admitted De Havilland. "In different ways, almost every day. On 'Captain Blood,' Stanley Logan, the dialogue director, said to me, 'That man is troubled — look at the way he is always rubbing his thumb against the cuticle of his index finger. He seems to have a great deal of inner distress.' He really was a mixed-up man, but of course he was extraordinary-looking and had great charm."

Their teaming concluded with Raoul Walsh's 1941 "They Died With Their Boots On," which offers a provocatively sympathetic view of headstrong Gen. George Custer, in which Flynn gives one of his best performances opposite De Havilland's supportive wife.

When Custer goes off to the Little Big Horn, he knows very well he is unlikely to survive the battle, and Flynn and De Havilland's farewell scene is a classic. It is overwhelmingly poignant, especially when Custer says, "Walking through life with you, ma'am, has been a very gracious thing."

"I sensed it really was our last film together," said De Havilland, "even though I did not know it then. After all, I did have two more years to go on my contract. Yet I experienced a sense of grief and loss, a terrible feeling, but couldn't define it at the time. I had sort of a sense of that you may know a person one way but not others. Errol and I were not sharing experiences and life but instead sharing the lives of these characters we were playing.

"But, oh, he did mean a great deal to me, but in that day a woman did not declare her feelings for a man. When his autobiography came out I couldn't resist checking the index and going to the page where he mentioned me. He said he thought he loved me. " 'Thought!' That meant he didn't! I didn't read another word! Then several years ago when I was returning for the release of the DVD version of "Gone With the Wind," I was determined to read more. I began with his second sentence about me in which he said that he decided that he did love me. To think of all those years I didn't believe he did."

Even though she made her home in Paris, her residence to this day, De Havilland would regularly return to the screen and television until the late 1980s. Since then she has not acted but has continued a busy routine of participating in documentaries and film industry events and honors.

Could she still be tempted by a good script?

"Oh, that's not enough!," exclaimed De Havilland, still holding firm. "It has to have a good part for me and a good director as well."

======================================

Born in Tokyo, Olivia, Joan and their mother moved to California in 1919 after their British father, a patent attorney, took up with the Japanese maid. "My mother was religious," recalls Olivia, "but she didn't go to church." Olivia arranged to have herself baptized at 16, but stopped going to church through most of her Hollywood career. She returned to the fold after her son, Benjamin (by her first husband, novelist Marcus Goodrich), was born. When he was just 19, he became seriously ill. "She looked after him herself," recalls the Very Rev. Sturgis Riddle, a longtime friend and dean emeritus of the Paris cathedral. "She had deep faith that through love and prayer he would be helped." After Benjamin, now 29 and a mathematician in California, recovered, his mother threw herself into volunteer work for the church. "I find it thrilling," she says. "It's so boring, this selfish life we lead to survive."

De Havilland also has a daughter, Gisèle, 22, who is just finishing criminal law studies in France. For six of the 16 years of her separation from Galante, de Havilland and he lived in separate parts of their 12-room Paris townhouse, but she is now contemplating selling it and relocating to Washington, D.C. "People ask me why don't I move back to California," de Havilland says, "but I want a new life." She also admits she would like a new love. "A man in my life? What a divine idea. I am the woman who arrives at parties alone and goes home with a married couple. That is carrying Episcopalian discretion to a very great extreme."

=======================================

Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard are gone. Olivia de Havilland at 80 seems indestructible; she recently survived a punishing attack of shingles which caused an angry rash and inflammation of the nerves. Her beauty remains, enhanced by silver hair swept back stylishly.

She has lived in a Paris town house on a quiet side street near the Bois de Bologne for 40 years. She recently walked a few blocks to a favorite restaurant for a lengthy lunch with a reporter acquaintance from her Hollywood days. A bright conversationalist, she talked on many matters, punctuated often with a warm, throaty laugh.

The actress retains a sunny optimism, remarkable in view of the troubles that have plagued her life.

Her two marriages -- to American novelist Marcus Goodrich and French magazine editor Pierre Galante -- ended in divorce. She also endured a public feud with her volatile sister, Joan Fontaine.

"Benjie was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at the age of 19," she said. Despite his ailment, he was able to graduate in statistical mathematics from the University of Texas and work successfully as a scientist for Lockheed Aircraft. But eventually the cancer worsened.

Her eyes glistened but no tears fell as she recounted the long, pain-wracked years of radiation and other treatment. His white blood count fell so low that he was subject to the slightest ailment. He died five years ago at the age of 42.

Miss de Havilland hasn't acted since 1988, when she appeared as Wallis Simpson's Aunt Bessie in a television movie, "The Woman He Loved," with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But she insisted she is not retired.

"I have taken a long vacation," she remarked, "but I wouldn't object to a fascinating part in a first-rate project, something I felt I could do well or would understand and interpret in an effective way. Then I would say, 'Yes.' The offers still come, but not what I'm looking for."

Meanwhile, she keeps busy seeing old friends, reading fan mail and agonizing over her autobiography, long a work in progress.

She was born to English parents in Tokyo on July 1, 1916. After the parents divorced, her mother took Olivia and her younger sister Joan to Northern California. Olivia studied at the Notre Dame convent in Belmont, then won a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland.

Before college, she appeared in a local production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream," and was selected by famed director Max Reinhardt to play Hermia at the Hollywood Bowl. When Warner Bros. decided to film the play, the studio signed her to a contract. She was 20.

If Mr. Reinhardt hadn't chosen her, what direction might her life taken?

"Actually I don't know what would have happened," she reflected. "That's one reason I wanted to go to college. I looked forward to those four years tremendously. Because I had several talents, and they all gave me pleasure.

"But I didn't know what one used to call 'my true love' was. I counted on those four years at Mills to help me find my true love. For many, many years, I thought I had taken the wrong path.

"There are so many things about the film business that are excessively stressful. And that isn't a very good way to live. So many things happen that are of deep offense to one.

"So I'm not sure it was the right path. But in the end, I'm not sorry about it."

======================================

MALIBU, Calif. - Olivia de Havilland, the last surviving star of the 1939 classic “Gone with the Wind” and two-time winner of the Oscar as best actress, will receive another accolade Thursday evening — a rare tribute from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“I’m told I’m only the fourth person to get such a tribute,” she said proudly in advance of the ceremony. It will feature film clips of de Havilland’s long career, accompanied by her own remembrances.

On a recent afternoon, de Havilland sat for an interview in her daughter Giselle’s sunswept garden in Malibu, shaded by a towering red bougainvillea tree. Dressed smartly, only her snow-white hair gave hint of her age. Unlike some divas, she makes no secret of how old she is.

“I’ll be 90 on July 1,” she announced. “I can’t wait to be 90! Another victory!”

De Havilland hasn’t acted in almost 20 years, her last performances having been in television movies— as the Russian empress in “Anastasia,” as Aunt Bessie in “The Woman I Love,” the story of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, and as the Queen Mother in “Charles and Diana.”

Does she miss the acting life?

“Not at all,” she replied. “Life is too full of events of great importance. That is more absorbing and enriching than a fantasy life.

“I don’t seem to need a fantasy life as I once did. That is the life of the imagination that I had a great need for. Films were the perfect means for satisfying that need.”

Family first

For 10 years at the end of the century, she was unable to work because of family matters. Her son, Benjamin Goodrich, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at 17, died in 1992 after a long illness. He was 42.

Her second husband, Pierre Galante, editor of the magazine Paris Match, fell ill with lung cancer. Even though they had divorced in 1979, Olivia helped with his care. “Since he lived across the street from my house, it was easy,” she says. He died in 1998.

During the same period, she was helping Giselle, her daughter with Galante, make it through periods of depression.

When Giselle called on April 14 with news of her husband’s death, her mother asked, “Do you want me there?” Giselle said yes, and de Havilland left Paris and was in Malibu the next day. She hasn’t left.

De Havilland was in her first year of college when she was chosen to play Hermia in a stage extravaganza of “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” That led to a Warner Bros. contract and her dream of becoming a dramatic actress in films. Her first movie: a low-budget comedy with Joe E. Brown.

The studio kept her busy as the love interest for swashbuckling Errol Flynn and in unsatisfying roles. Finally she rebelled and was suspended for refusing a script. She was off the screen for three years before winning her freedom in court. Only then did her career blossom.

“I cannot say that work was happy,” de Havilland reflected. “It was intensely absorbing. You invested your entire self in what you’re doing.

“If you see a film and you forget that the character you’re watching is yourself and you wonder what she’s going to do next... that’s deeply satisfying.”

She cited “The Snake Pit,” in which she played a patient in an insane asylum, as the role that satisfied her most. Also in that category: “The Heiress,” “To Each his Own” and “Dark Mirror,” in which she played twins, one good, one bad. She does not mention her most famous role, as Melanie in “Gone with the Wind.”

She won her Oscars for “To Each His Own” and “The Heiress.”

In 1953 de Havilland moved to Paris, partly to avoid a possible lawsuit by her divorced husband, author Marcus Goodrich, over custody of Benjamin, partly because she was in love with a charming Frenchman, Galante. She has long resided in a three-story house near the Bois de Boulogne.

Memoirs on the horizon

For many years de Havilland has been talking about writing her memoirs. Now it may happen.

“I couldn’t write it until I knew more about my beginnings,” she reasoned. “So I went to England and visited the place where my mother had been born, where my grandfather had been born, where my parents had married. I hired a researcher in England to do more hunting for me.”

She also gave a researcher in San Francisco a list of her memories as a 2-year-old newly arrived from Japan, where she had been born to her English parents. He produced evidence that her memories about places and happenings were correct.

“The researchers were very expensive, but it was worth it,” she remarked. “Now I think I can start writing and see it through.”

Olivia's cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882-1965), the British aviation pioneer and designer of aircraft such as the wartime Mosquito fighter.

Older sister of actress Joan Fontaine.

Daughter of film and stage actress Lillian Fontaine.

Relations between de Havilland and younger sister Joan Fontaine were never all that strong and worsened in 1941, when both were nominated for 'Best Actress' Oscar awards. Their mutual dislike and jealousy escalated into an all-out feud after Fontaine won for Suspicion (1941). Despite the fact that de Havilland went on to win two Academy Awards of her own, they remained permanently estranged.

After her divorce from second husband Pierre Galante in 1979 they remained close friends, and after Galante became ill with cancer she nursed him until his death in 1998.

As of January 2009, is the only surviving major cast member of Gone with the Wind (1939). Other surviving supporting players who received screen credit include Ann Rutherford, Mickey Kuhn, Alicia Rhett, Mary Anderson and Cammie King.

Justly famous for her court victory against Warner Brothers in the mid 1940s (many others had sued Warners but failed), which stopped Warners from adding suspension periods to actors' contracts and therefore meant more freedom for actors in Hollywood. It became known as the "de Havilland decision".

Has made Paris her home since the mid 1950s.

Showed flair as a writer when "Every Fenchman Has One," a lighthearted autobiographical account of her attempts at adapting to French life, was published in 1962.

At the age of 82, was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Hertfordshire, England.

Lost her son Benjamin to Hodgkin's disease in 1991, shortly before Benjamin's father, writer Marcus Goodrich, passed away.

In 1965, she became the first female president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Turned down the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), allegedly stating that "A lady just doesn't say or do those things on the screen". De Havilland set the record straight in a 2006 interview, saying that she had recently given birth to her son when offered the part and was unable to relate to the material.

Is descended from the Haverlands of Normandy, one of whom (the Lord of Haverland) accompanied William the Conquerer in his invasion of England in 1066.

Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968), was a patent attorney in Japan and also author of the 1910 book 'The ABC of go', which provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the Japanese board game.

She had two children (one from each of her marriages): Benjamin (1949-1991), who became a mathematician, and Gisele (b. 1956), who followed in her father's footsteps by becoming a journalist.

It was reported in October 2001 that Miss de Havilland was among 40 prominent French residents who were victims of hoax anthrax attacks. (The attacks were proven to be hoaxes after a woman was arrested in Paris for sending out envelopes containing a powdery substance.)

Ms. de Havilland lives a peaceful retirement at her home on Rue Benouville, in Paris. She spends time teaching Sunday School to children at a local church.

She made a special appearance at the The 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003) (TV) and received a well-deserved standing ovation.

She holds the record for the most people thanked in an Oscar acceptance speech (27) when she accepted the award for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946).

In 1991, her son, Benjamin Briggs Goodrich, a statistical analyst, died of complications from Hodgkin's disease at his mother's home in Paris, France.

Is the 15th cousin twice removed of Errol Flynn, her co-star in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

She and Joan Fontaine are the first sisters to win Oscars and the first ones to be Oscar-nominated in the same year.

She and Errol Flynn acted together in 9 movies: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Dodge City (1939), Four's a Crowd (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

Confessed in later years that she had an intense crush on Errol Flynn during the years of their filming, saying that it was hard to resist his charms.

Her mother named her Olivia after William Shakespeare's romantic heroine in "Twelfth Night.".

The role of Lisolette Mueller in the The Towering Inferno (1974) was originally offered to her. It was eventually played by Jennifer Jones.

Was somewhat overweight when she first came to Paramount, yet Edith Head was able to design costumes with a slimming effect.

Aunt of Debbie Dozier.

Ex-sister-in-law of Collier Young, Brian Aherne and William Dozier.

She has a street named after her in Mexico City. Renowned Mexican actor and director Emilio Fernández lived in Coyoacan Town on a street with no name at all, so he asked the authorities to name this street "Dulce Olivia," Spanish for "Sweet Olivia," after her.

When she was 9 years old, she made a will in which she stated, "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan [Joan Fontaine], since she has none".

Was romantically involved with James Stewart, Howard Hughes, John Huston and Errol Flynn in the late 1930s.

In the 1950s, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson, AZ, named one of their female javalinas "Olivia de Javalina" in her honor; incidentally, their male was named "Gregory Peckory" to honor actor Gregory Peck.

Was a close friend of Ronald Reagan during their time in Hollywood. Both were active anti-communist members of the Hollywood Democratic Committee.

In April 1946 she set off a power struggle within the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP) by refusing to deliver two speeches in Seattle as written by her fellow executive council member Dalton Trumbo, later one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. She felt Trumbo's text was too left-wing and worried that the organization was becoming "automatically pro-Russian".

In Italy, almost all of her films were dubbed by either Dhia Cristiani or Lidia Simoneschi. For the Italian releases of two of her most celebrated and fondly remembered roles, Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), she was dubbed, respectively, by Renata Marini and Dina Perbellini. This was the only time that either Italian actresses lent her voice to Olivia.

Attended the funeral of Charlton Heston in April, 2008.

Attended as a surprise guest honoring the late Bette Davis, her long-time friend and co-star at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles on May 1, 2008. The event, "A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis", was hosted by film historian Robert Osborne and its reception included Davis's son, Michael Merrill, Davis's long-time personal assistant Kathryn Sermak and friends Gena Rowlands & Joan Leslie.

She accepted two film roles turned down by Ginger Rogers, To Each His Own (1946) and The Snake Pit (1948). Olivia won an Oscar for To Each His Own (1946) and was nominated for The Snake Pit (1948). Rogers later regretted turning down the roles and wrote: "It seemed Olivia knew a good thing when she saw it. Perhaps Olivia should thank me for such poor judgment".

Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 6764 Hollywood Blvd.

She was awarded the 2008 American National Medal of the Arts by President George Walker Bush in Washington D.C.

Received the Medal of Arts Honor from President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony in the East Room on November 17, 2008, "for her persuasive and compelling skill as an actress in roles from Shakespeare's Hermia to Margaret Mitchell's Melanie. Her independence, integrity, and grace won creative freedom for herself and her fellow film actors.".

Her cousin Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882 - 1965) was a British aviation pioneer, aircraft designer and owner of The de Havilland Aircraft Company. Their wooden bomber Mosquito has been considered the most versatile warplane ever built. The ill-fated de Havilland Comet was the first commercial jet airliner in 1952.

Over the years, the Academy has recognized acting families, with awards bestowed upon siblings, parents and children, and even cousins. The Huston's, the Fonda's, the Coppola's, and the Redgrave's, are among the acting families, who have multiple awards amongst them. But perhaps the most interesting, would be that duo of feuding sisters, who's private infighting, became Hollywood gossip, and who would butt heads at the Oscar ceremonies on more than one occasion!

.

Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine were both army brats, two sisters born one year apart in Tokyo , where their father was stationed, back in 1916-17. The girls suffered from ill-health, forcing the parents to move to California when they were young. During that time, their parents divorced, and their father returned to Tokyo.

The sisters admit that growing up together, that they fought constantly. According to Fontaine, elder sister, Olivia never got used to the idea of a younger sister, and thus a jealous rivalry was begun. Their fighting was so bitter as children, that it often resulted in fist fighting, as much as it did petty squabbling.

Olivia was the first to venture into acting, taking the stage in the early thirties. Sister Joan followed suit a few years later.

As they were both being courted for contracts with movie studios, Joan changed her name to Fontaine, supposedly on the advice of a fortune teller. While Joan started to work her way up the ranks of RKO, playing smaller roles to Katherine Hepburn and Joan Crawford, Olivia was signed with Warner's, playing high profile roles in Robin Hood and in several Bette Davis films.

By 1939, Olivia had made a name for herself, so much so, that she was a popular choice with fans, and with casting agents, to play Melanie, in the classic, Gone With the Wind. Olivia earned her first nomination for Best Supporting Actress, playing the ultra-pure wife of the man that Scarlett O'Hara is hot-to-trot for.

Of course, the award would ultimately be handed out to her co-star, Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to ever win the award, but that fact didn't console de Havilland. She later admitted, that for at least two weeks after her defeat, she was convinced that 'there was no God.' She admitted that on the night that McDaniel won, she 'couldn't stay at that table another minute. I had to be alone, so I wandered out into the kitchen and cried.' She said that it took a few days before she could finally be 'proud' that she "belonged to a profession which honored a black woman who merited this, in a time when other groups had neither the honesty, nor the courage to do the same sort of thing."

The very next year, David Selznick was looking for a vehicle to follow up his success on Gone With the Wind. He chose Rebecca, and gave newcomer, Alfred Hitchcock free reign to direct. Hitchcock cast the other sister, Joan, in the lead role of the meek and mild, second Mrs. de Winter. The film was a success, garnering yet another Best Picture win for Selznick's camp. Meanwhile, Joan was suddenly a big star, and found herself nominated for her first Best Actress Award.

Despite raving reviews by the critics, and a huge fan base that was gunning for her, Joan didn't win that year. Instead, the award went to Ginger Rogers, who was perhaps being honored for a decade worth of fine work in classic musicals and comedies, rather than for the second grade weepy, Kitty Foyle, for which she was nominated. Fontaine was gracious about losing, stating that 'to have won for my first good role, would have been precipitous.'

The 1941 Oscar's marked the first round in the battle of the feuding sisters, when both of them were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Joan received the nod for Suspicion, her second film with Alfred Hitchcock directing her, while Olivia was recognized for Hold Back the Dawn.

Joan actually didn't plan on attending the ceremony, stating that she had to be up early the next morning, however, older sister, Olivia twisted her arm, stating, "You have to be there. Your absence would look odd."

Gingers Rogers presented the Best Actress award, while the two sisters sat next to each other at the Selznick table. When she called out Joan's name, Joan remembers how she just froze. "Get up there," her sister nudged. Joan remembers bursting into tears at that very moment. "All the animus we felt toward each other as children," she recalled. "The hair pulling, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collar bone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery. My paralysis was total ... I felt age four, being confronted by my older sister. Damn it! I incurred her wrath again."

Known for: Gone with the Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Heiress

Birth name: Olivia Mary de Havilland

Birthday: 1 July 1916, Tokyo, Japan

Height: 5' 3½" (1.61 m)

Available Photos 5

View newly Olivia de Havilland Pictures »

Trivia

Olivia's cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882-1965) the British aviation pioneer and designer of aircraft such as the wartime Mosquito fighter.

Older sister of actress Joan Fontaine

Daughter of film and stage actress Lillian Fontaine.

Relations between de Havilland and younger sister Joan Fontaine were never all that strong and worsened in 1941, when both were nominated for 'Best Actress' Oscar awards. Their mutual dislike and jealousy escalated into an all-out feud after Fontaine won for Suspicion. Despite the fact de Havilland went on to win two Academy Awards of her own, they remained permanently estranged.

After her divorce from second husband Pierre Galante in 1979 they remained close friends, and after Galante became ill with cancer she nursed him until his death in 1998.

Only surviving star (who received star-billing) of Gone with the Wind. Other surviving minor stars are Ann Rutherford and Evelyn Keyes.

Justly famous for her court victory against Warner Brothers in the mid 1940s (which many others had failed) which stopped Warners from adding suspension periods to actor's contracts and therefore meant more freedom for actors in Hollywood. It became known as the 'De Havilland decision'.

Has made Paris her home since the mid 1950s.

Showed flair as a writer when 'Every Fenchman Has One', a lighthearted autobiographical account of her attempts at adapting to French life, was published in 1962.

At the age of 82 was awarded an honorary degree of letters from the University of Hertfordshire, England.

Lost her son Benjamin to Hodgkins disease in 1991, shortly before Benjamin's father, writer Marcus Goodrich, passed away.

In 1965 she became the first female president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Turned down the role of Blanche DuBois in _Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)_ , allegedly stating that "A lady just doesn't say or do those things on the screen".

Is descended from the Haverlands of Normandy, one of whom (the Lord of Haverland) accompanied William the Conquerer in his historical invasion of England in 1066.

Her father Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968) was a patent attorney in Japan and also author of the 1910 book 'The ABC of go', which provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the Japanese board game.

She had two children (one from each of her marriages): Benjamin (1949-1991) who became a mathematician and Gisele (b. 1956) who followed in her father's footsteps by becoming a journalist.

It was reported in October 2001 that Miss de Havilland was among 40 prominent French residents who were victims of hoax anthrax attacks. (The attacks were proven to be hoaxes after a woman was arrested in Paris for sending out envelopes containing a powdery substance.)

Ms. de Havilland lives a peaceful retirement at her home on Rue Benouville, in Paris. She spends her time teaching Sunday School to children at a local church.

She made a special appearance at the 75th Annual Academy Awards, and received a well deserved standing ovation.

She holds the record for the most number of people thanked in an Oscar acceptance speech (27 people), when she accepted the award for Best Actress for To Each His Own.

In 1991, her son, Benjamin Briggs Goodrich, a statistical analyst, died of complications from Hodgkin's disease at his mother's home in Paris, France.

Is the 15th cousin twice removed of Errol Flynn her co-star in The Adventures of Robin Hood.

She and Joan Fontaine are the first sisters to win Oscars and the first ones to be Oscar-nominated in the same year.

Is portrayed by Lee Purcell in My Wicked, Wicked Ways... The Legend of Errol Flynn

She and Errol Flynn acted together in 9 movies: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Dodge City, All Rights Reserved, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Santa Fe Trail, Thank Your Lucky Stars and They Died with Their Boots On

Confessed in later years that she had an intense crush on Errol Flynn during the years of their filming. She confessed it was hard to resist his charms...but she did.

Her mother named her Olivia after Shakespeare's romantic heroine in "Twelfth Night."

The role of Lisolette Mueller in the The Towering Inferno was originally offered to Miss de Havilland. The character was eventually played by Jennifer Jones.

Was somewhat overweight when she first came to Paramount, yet Edith Head was able to design costumes with a slimming effect.

Aunt of Debbie Dozier.

Ex-sister-in-law of Collier Young, Brian Aherne and William Dozier.

She has a street named after her in Mexico City. Renowned Mexican actor and director Emilio Fernández lived in Coyoacan Town on a street with no name at all, so he asked the authorities to name this street "Dulce Olivia", Spanish for "Sweet Olivia", after her.

When she was 9 years old, she made a will in which she stated "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan (Joan Fontaine), since she has none".

COMPANION: Jimmy Stewart. Actor. Dated in the 1940s; expected him to propose; when he didn't, terminated the relationship.

COMPANION: John Huston. Director, screenwriter, actor. Involved in the 1940s; reunited in 1950s after her divorce.

HUSBAND: Marcus Aurelius Goodrich. Novelist. Married in 1946; divorced in 1952; born c. 1898 in Texas; died on October 20, 1991 of heart failure at age 93 in a Richmond, Virginia nursing home; great grandfather was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence; wrote the 1941 best-seller, "Delilah".

HUSBAND: Pierre Galante. Magazine editor. Met at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival; married on April 2, 1955; divorced in 1979; editor of PARIS MATCH; moved back in with de Havilland c. 1998 after being hospitalized; died on September 25, 1998.

She was married to French journalist and Paris Match editor Pierre Galante between 1955 until 1979. Their daughter, Giselle (who later became a journalist) was born in July 1956 when de Havilland was 40. After the divorce, de Havilland and Galante remained on good terms, and she nursed him through his final illness (lung cancer) in Paris, which was the stated reason for her absence from the 70th anniversary of the Oscars in 1998.

The christening cup of Geoffrey Raoul de Havilland, given me by his mother after his death on September 27, 1946, while attempting to break the sound barrier in the DH-108, the de Havilland experimental plane.